{"id":6169,"date":"2016-10-20T14:54:08","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T18:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2016\/10\/20\/sustainability-in-action\/"},"modified":"2024-07-24T14:19:17","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T18:19:17","slug":"sustainability-in-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/sustainability-in-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustainability in action"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Jenni Asman \u201911, a career in sustainability was far from her original intention. The current program manager for sustainability at Georgia State University started off as a neuroscience major at Furman University, but quickly figured out that she didn\u2019t want to go into medicine. \u201cI was always interested in the behavioral aspects of neuroscience,\u201d she says, \u201cso I took some psychology courses and realized that\u2019s where I needed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Asman

Asman with Pounce and GSU students at the inaugural Georgia State Farmers Market<\/p><\/div>\n

During her freshman year, Asman became involved with the Shucker Leadership Institute<\/a>, a two-year program designed to develop student leaders. As part of this program, the students are required to develop a project on a specific topic. Asman partnered with two other students, but admits they were procrastinating picking a topic. \u201cWe thought that the environment was a popular subject at the time,\u201d she recalls, \u201cso we decided to do a project on energy conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three presented their idea to Kim Keefer, director of the Shucker Leadership Institute, who introduced them to Furman\u2019s Director of Sustainability Angela Halfacre. \u201cAngela was very excited about working with students who were interested in sustainability,\u201d Asman reports. \u201cShe took on a mentorship role for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust seeing what Angela did on a daily basis, opened my eyes to the world of sustainability,\u201d Asman notes. \u201cI was particularly interested in people\u2019s perceptions about sustainability, and how you can use different techniques and messaging to modify their behavior and engage them in more sustainable activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The summer of Asman\u2019s second year, Halfacre hired four students as the first David E. Shi Center for Sustainability<\/a> Fellows, who would help to integrate sustainability into the campus culture. \u201cUnquestionably, Jenni and the other first three fellows set the stage for this impressive and enriching program that has contributed to both campus and community projects and goals over the last eight years,\u201d Halfacre says.<\/p>\n

Asman\u2019s task was to research best sustainability practices at universities and to create a first-year orientation session on sustainability at Furman. She worked with business professor\u00a0Jeanine Stratton and psychology professor Michelle Horhota to craft two different videos with different messaging types. They set out to see, given the type of messaging the students received, whether students would be more or less likely to recycle. They tracked recycling rates from different sessions based on what messaging types each group received, and eventually published their study in the Sustainability Journal of Record<\/em>. \u201cIt was a cool opportunity as an undergraduate to do that!\u201d Asman exclaims.<\/p>\n

\"Two

Two GSU staff members complete\u00a0Georgia State Staff Sustainability Certification Training.<\/p><\/div>\n

After graduation, Asman went to work as program director for the Conservation Voters of South Carolina. \u201cIt was a great job,\u201d she says of her time overseeing the organization\u2019s Green Schools Program, \u201cbut after a year and a half, I missed the university setting and working with students.\u201d<\/p>\n

All this experience, particularly her work with Furman\u2019s Shi Center for Sustainability, primed Asman for a job as program coordinator in the brand-new Sustainability Office at Georgia State University (GSU) in 2013. She was promoted to sustainability program manager in 2015. \u201cIf I had not had that experience at the Shi Center, I probably would have been too afraid to even apply for the job at GSU,\u201d she reflects. \u201cFurman gave me the confidence to apply and to excel.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her current job, Asman is responsible for conceiving new sustainability initiatives for all six\u00a0GSU campus locations in Georgia. \u201cGiven the size of GSU [54,000 students], we have a very small office of sustainability. I like to say we\u2019re small but mighty,\u201d she quips. She advises facilities on best practices and how to be more efficient, and creates policy around energy efficiency and sustainable building. She also collaborates with the faculty associate in her office to find new ways to infuse sustainability concepts into the curriculum.<\/p>\n

Asman recently completed a five-year plan for sustainability, which she considers a significant accomplishment, and one that lays out a clear road map for GSU. She hopes her plan will become part of the university\u2019s overall strategic plan in the near future.<\/p>\n

\"The

The Sustainable Energy Tribe, the largest environmentally focused student group on campus, celebrates GSU Earth Day Festival.<\/p><\/div>\n

Like her mentor, Angela Halfacre, Asman loves working with the students. \u201cThey come in with all this energy,\u201d she says. \u201cThey know there are challenges to pushing sustainability forward on campus, but they see the benefits and the positive side, and that is so refreshing.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Halfacre, who is now Furman’s\u00a0special advisor to the President for community engagement,\u00a0sees it, \u201cJenni is one of those bright shining stars\u2014during her time at Furman and now more broadly as she contributes to sustainability in the South\u2014who makes teaching and collaboration incredibly meaningful for us as faculty, Furman as an institution, and our society.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Jenni Asman \u201911, a career in sustainability was far from her original intention. The current program manager for sustainability at Georgia State University started off as a neuroscience major […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":16295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,3,60,17,48,18,68,61,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-alumni","category-alumni-profiles","category-centers-and-institutes","category-psychology","category-shi-institute-for-sustainable-communities","category-shucker-leadership-institute","category-the-furman-advantage","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33274,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6169\/revisions\/33274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}